Cedar City Revisited

Van and I have just returned from a road trip to Cedar City, Utah, to attend the Shakespeare Festival put on there every summer. We discovered the Festival in 1992 when Van was getting an LLM at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, and we went throughout the 1990s. There have been a few changes in the past ten years.

Cedar City and the towns around it have exploded with new businesses and housing developments. We were happy to see a few of our favorites were still going -- even though the quilt shop had moved to a different location, and Pancho and Lefty's Restaurant is now just Lefty's!

The Festival seems as popular as ever, and college students from Southern Utah University still dress in period costumes and participate in a "Greenshow" of dancing and singing appropriate to Shakespeare's time (albeit somewhat tamer than what we remembered). Volunteers with accents and costumes wander through the crowds, selling tarts and programs; but I miss the older woman who kept us entertained in the 90s with bawdy jokes she would sell for a dollar.

The plays were better than ever. We saw, in order of our favorites, HENRY V, COMEDY OF ERRORS, and AS YOU LIKE IT. The first two were outstanding. We had seen HENRY V and AS YOU LIKE IT before, but the third was a new one and played to full slap-stick effect.

I bought fabric to create a wall-hanging for the dining room, and Van sampled craft beers in several brew pubs across Colorado and Kansas: Gella's in Hays, KS; Kanah Canyon in Grand Junction, CO; and Mo's in Beaver, KS.

Great trip!

Goodbye to Jake

We're all sad at TDTR this morning. My neighbor called at 6 AM to tell us that, Jake, our black-lab-mix male dog, had been hit and killed in the road.

Jake was a real sweetie, found at the pound and brought home as company for Daffy, our Pyrennes. He loved to play fetch, and he always ran to meet us with a "present" in his mouth -- usually a toy or stick, but sometimes just a rock or dried grass.

But he also jumped our six-foot fence, probably why he was in the pound as a "stray" in the first place. Everyone around us knew him because he visited all the neighbors, went hunting with some, kept other dogs company who couldn't jump THEIR fences. He was smart about almost everything, just not about the road.

We miss him already.

Recap of The News

It's been tooooooo long since I updated, so here goes the catch-up news:

~My sister, Debbie was here for as long as she could stand all the work! We painted and rearranged furniture and dug up plants and mowed until she had to go home to rest...but it was wonderful having her here for as long as we did, and we are already bugging her to come back. No work, this time -- promise!

~Trailing after Lewis and Clark with my brother, Brad, was an amazing trip, despite the fifth and final day when we drove from Bismark, ND, to Goddard, KS, in 15 hours. We stopped when something caught our eye, we took pics, we hiked at LoLo Pass after buying me a fleece jacket for the cold, and we ate at diners and weird places along the way. We were fortunate to see the trail at approximately the same time of year that L&C were there, and the camas field was gorgeous...even if we didn't dig the roots and try eating them.

~The Celebration for my father went well, and it was great to see all the cousins getting to know each other...the newest ones, Ava and Rylie, are only a few weeks apart in age and SUPER cute! My cousin's husband, Charlie, did a wonderful job at the gravesite, telling stories and encouraging us to share our times with Boompa. We had about 30 people for a barbecue, we provided the fireflies for the kids, and the weather provided the fireworks -- lightning and thunder and wind.

~While I was trailing along, Van made an executive decision and put a honey super box on each hive even though we weren't sure they could find enough nectar to make their own honey without our sugar water feedings. We checked them after I returned, and all is well...so far. Our weather this past ten days has been near-or-over-100-degree temperatures, not the best for the bees or the plants.

~On the plus side, the tomatoes are loving the sunshine and threatening to ripen in massive amounts!

~The Kansas Beer Guys are deep into The Pale Ale Pandomonium Tournament, and they are down to the Sweet Sixteen.

Van and I are off to Cedar City, Utah, to see the Shakespearean Festival. The troupe is doing our favorite play, HENRY V, along with AS YOU LIKE IT and COMEDY OF ERRORS. We will be stopping at a couple of brew pubs along the way: one in Hays, KS, and the other in Beaver, KS...the latter has a population of 60, so I can't wait to see what's there!